Ewen Gilmour's Turtle Van is being auctioned for charity.
The late (and legendary) Ewen Gilmour may be missing from the Variety Bash line-up this year, but his big personality will be felt at the event - and he will still make a big contribution.
The 25th running of the Variety Bash will take place in March and while Gilmour - one of the Bash's most enthusiastic and well-known participants - may be missing after passing away last October, his team of Overage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be very much present at the week-long event.
To assist with their fundraising for the event - which in turn benefits Variety and Kiwi kids - the team will be auctioning off the Turtle Van that Gilmour and his team used in the last Bash.
"Ewen's family suggested the van be sold and proceeds put towards the 2015 Bash, so this sale is taking place with their blessing," said Ed Finn, Overage Mutant Ninja Turtle member and Gilmour's Variety Bash partner.
"Ewen was such a personality, a larger-than-life identity, and even in death he's essentially doing his bit to help better the lives of sick, needy, underprivileged and less fortunate Kiwi children."
The Turtle Van was used in the 2014 Bash and since Ewen's passing has been in storage.
Coule it be your new family wagon? An excuse to take part in the Bash yourself? The perfect Targa car? The Turtle Van could be yours to do with as you like. Maybe not a Targa car, though ...
The auction for Ewen's van is already under way - search TradeMe for "Ewen Gilmour" to find it. The auction finishes Monday January 26, at 8pm.
• A dog in Seattle has learned to ride public transport by itself, because it got sick of waiting for its owner. Eclipse, a black labrador, catches the bus that stops by her apartment, rides it for three stops and hops off at the dog park. Bus driver and regular passengers are said to be used to the dog, which sits in a seat "like a person" and carefully watches out the window for her stop. Eclipse first started riding the bus by herself when her owner, Jeff Young, was having a cigarette and didn't get on the bus. He says Eclipse got on by herself. He met her later at the park and she has ridden by herself ever since.
• It seems the Russian edition of Top Gear magazine has inadvertently outed a top secret submarine. A double-page spread featuring a scenic shot shows the sub cruising by in the background - a sub that has been around since 1988 without any real photos of it appearing. Even Jeremy Clarkson hasn't given up any national military secrets yet ...
• Two women in Scotland were on the receiving end of a brutal potato/coleslaw driveway attack. One of the women is said to have "keeled over in the middle of the street" after being struck by a potato and a tub of coleslaw. Apparently she thought she had been shot, which is the Good Oil's usual reaction to coleslaw too.
Formula One driver Fernando Alonso.Picture / Supplied
Honda may finally have come close to being interesting again by re-entering Formula 1 with McLaren, but then they have almost immediately proven themselves to be the biggest buzz-kills in motorsport by stopping Fernando Alonso from driving in this year's Le Mans 24-Hour race.
Auto Motor und Sport reported that Porsche came extremely close (just shy of getting an actual signature, we understand) to signing the best eyebrows in motorsport to drive the third 919 Hybrid in this year's race, but Honda stepped in at the last moment and showed it had no idea of how awesome that would have made the race.
Though McLaren doesn't compete in the World Endurance Championship, Honda runs in the LMP2 category (supplying privateer teams) and decided this was close enough to deny Porsche.
Though we can understand Honda's reluctance to let its driver race for another manufacturer (and the talk is Alonso is contracted to Honda rather than McLaren), 'Nando racing at Le Mans could have kicked off another brilliant era of F1 jockeys racing in all sorts of other formulas, such as WEC, in the F1 off-season. Sigh ...
Audi is running out of Q badges.
While Hyundai is making the move away from numbers and letters in favour of actual names for its cars, it seems those who are sticking with it may well start running into problems - like eventually running out of them.
Numbers, that is, particularly if they only use one in conjunction with a single letter, as Audi has just found out.
The success of Audi's SUV line has, naturally enough, seen the German manufacturer looking to expand the range beyond the Q3, Q5 and Q7. It tried to nab the trademarks for everything between Q1 and Q9.
The only problem is that Fiat Chrysler already owns Q2 and Q4, and it isn't keen to let them go.
The last time a Q4 badge appeared anywhere, it was on the AWD version of the 159 sedan, but that doesn't mean Fiat Chrysler chief executive Sergio Marchionne is willing to sell the names it no longer really needs (and never really did) to the VW Audi Group. His personal dislike for arch-rival VW Ubermensch Ferdinand Piech may see him do everything he can to stop it happening.
So if Audi wants to produce a car between the big-selling Q3 and Q5 or something even bigger than the Q7, it really doesn't have suitable names for them ...
The Volkswagen Kombi Limo is on the market for $282,000.
VW obsessives are known to differentiate examples of the Type 2 (otherwise known as the Kombi, Transporter or Minibus) by the amount of windows they have.
The Good Oil knows this because we know a VW obsessive and have had to feign interest during many long-winded, seemingly never-ending critiques on the virtues of the 21-window non-camper version.
Well this VW Type 2 for sale on eBay in the US may well blow a few VW-obsessive minds.
The Good Oil's count has this VW Type 2 limo's window tally sitting at an impressive 33.
But an even more impressive number is its asking price of US$220,000 ($282,000).
Admittedly the price also includes the limousine business located in Maui that runs the VW limo, which we would imagine would be a fairly decent earner. Particularly if you charged by the hour - that little air-cooled VW engine tucked all the way up the back would damn near take the first hour just to hit 100km/h ...
72 WINS
The number of victories Honda had as an engine supplier in Formula 1.
3 WINS
The number of victories Honda had as a constructor.
6 CHAMPIONSHIPS
The number a Honda-engined car has won.
1 CHAMPIONSHIP
The number a Honda chassis has won.
The crash is blocking a lane where two main motorways meet heading into the capital.